Pittsburgh-based startup Shift Robotics has invented a "shoe" that allows you to walk 250% faster without spending money on it.
Mechanical engineer Xunjie Zhang used to get towork on a scooter, but after nearly having an accident, he made it his mission to figure out how to let people go faster without putting in more effort or exposing themselves to additional safety risks.
After graduating from the Institute of RoboticsCarnegie Mellon he founded Shift Robotics with a team of engineers, roboticists and sneaker designers, and together they developed Moonwalkers, a cross between a shoe and a motorized roller skate that can speed up the wearer's walking.
How they work:Moonwalkers are designed to attach to the sole of any shoe you already wear. To activate them, you lift one of your heels and rotate it slightly before lowering it again. To turn them off, simply lift the same heel and lower it again.
When activated, sensors in the shoes collect data aboutyour gait. Machine learning algorithms then use this data to control the speed at which eight motorized wheels at the bottom of each shoe rotate.
“There is no need to balance,” Zhang said. “Just walk faster to speed up and walk slower to slow down.”
The average walking speed for people is between 3up to 6 km/h - let's say at 4.8 km/h it will take you 20 minutes to cover a kilometer. But Moonwalkers can increase their speed to 11.2 km/h, or just 8.6 minutes to walk a kilometer.
It's a solid pace run, but you won't get sweaty. The experience is described as being like walking on a moving sidewalk at an airport - you don't expend any extra effort, but you go faster.
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